by Kris Ripper
Or not remember, exactly.
What I remembered was the wary, shadowed expression on his face. The way he’d ask if I was going to the gym again, with just that slight emphasis. When did I make my three times a week rule? After graduation. When I was reaching for structure.
Or when I was living with Jamie, and I knew she’d see it if I slipped.
“After I did scenes with people?” I asked, my own voice distant in my ears.
“Sometimes. Sometimes it was sex. I don’t think there was a pattern, exactly.”
“People don’t need aftercare for sex.”
“It’s like you decided that you didn’t need anyone, not for any reason except getting off. So you forced yourself to always be the first one out the door. But I don’t think it’s because you genuinely didn’t need anyone.”
And I’d gone home to him. Later, to him and to Jamie. It might have taken me a while to figure out, but maybe I’d eventually tried to build my own aftercare with them. Not with whatever dumbass had spanked my ass or clamped my nipples or fucked my face.
I just didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. I thought all along that I needed to be alone for aftercare, without realizing that most of the time, I wasn’t. Not until they moved into their own place. I went home to my friends, where I knew who I was, how I fit.
Nausea overtook me again so I put my latte down and pulled my legs up.
“Thing is, I bought it for a long time. You not needing anyone. I believed it because you believed it. Like I stopped believing in God because you didn’t believe in God. You kept saying it, and it was true. Both of us believed it.”
A sour rush of saliva filled my mouth and I pressed the back of my hand over it. I didn’t want to hear anything else. I couldn’t stop listening.
“But now it’s sort of fucking with my life, this thing where you think you don’t need us. Where you’re so, like, desperate to pretend everything’s fine. Why can’t you just try, Jus? People do that. They try. And it’s us, so there’s no risk.”
“You’re so stupid.” I wanted to make my voice savage, but it came out almost pleading. “Don’t you get it? It’s you, so I risk everything.”
He did things. Put his drink down. Moved closer to me on the sofa. Didn’t touch. “Come to the Saints house with us this weekend. First working weekend of the new year.”
“You haven’t gone out there?”
“It really wouldn’t be fun without you. We like…love you. Obviously.”
“And you need me for the heavy lifting.”
He shifted, leaning onto the stiff, uncomfortable back of the sofa, trying to catch my eye. “You remember when you told me you were in love with me?”
“How could I possibly forget?”
“You remember what you said?”
I sighed, tasting the words, as bright and alive today as they had been the first time I said them. “I am in love with you, Alexander.”
He leaned in, his forehead against mine. “Is that still true?”
“You know it is.”
“Come with us this weekend.”
I wanted to, like a homing pigeon seeking out the place—the people—I knew to be safe. Instinctively turning toward refuge. And even though in another way it felt dangerous as hell to tempt the fates, to tempt each other, I nodded, far too weak to say no when I felt so raw. I nodded. I couldn’t even give him the word.
“Awesome,” he murmured. “Jame’s gonna be so happy.”
I grabbed his wrist before he could move away. “I…I feel…I mean, it’s not just you. The way I feel.” God, she deserved so much better than that, than me fumbling through a vague declaration to Alex, not even able to voice the words.
“Jus, I know. But you should tell her, because she doesn’t know. She thinks there’s this imbalance thing, and it makes her hold back when she doesn’t want to.”
“Cork’s been holding back? I don’t even think I could survive her at full strength if this is what she looks like on decaf.” The rest of what he’d said hit me. “Wait, you mean, she—”
“Yeah, because I’m really going to get in the middle of this. You two can talk. This weekend even. You’ll be over Saturday morning?”
“Fine,” I huffed.
He grinned like a kid who’d just been handed the keys to a Toys R Us and told to grab whatever he wanted. “Sweet. Verbal contract. I’m gonna go before you back out. Bye, Jus.”
I waved and stayed on my sofa until I’d heard the door click shut. A second later I heard the bolt shoot, because of course he wouldn’t leave me without locking up.
My skin felt a little numb between the feelings and the caffeine. I cleaned up after us and picked up a book of Barry Lopez essays, which I read as the sun set, long past turning on the lamp. I forgot to eat dinner and made myself heat up beans and rice before bed.
The Saints house. Alex and Jamie. The light in my attic, which always seemed softer than anywhere else. Part of me was still scared, even though I didn’t quite know why. We had our rules. Nothing had changed.
Except I understood things about myself that I hadn’t before. And I wasn’t sure what to do about that.
Chapter Twenty-One
I STOPPED AT the usual place for coffee and donuts. Just a regular weekend trip to the coast. Nothing strange at all.
They weren’t quite up when I got to the apartment. Alex was awake enough to let me in, but yawned before he could even say hello.
I made my voice perky. “Late night, Rainbow Brite?”
He lunged for the donuts and yawned again, but made no apparent effort to speak.
Jamie stumbled out of the bathroom and kissed my cheek before taking her coffee. At least someone had manners.
I felt acutely bashful, which of course I tried to cover up by being brash and loud and abrasive, poking at everything from bed head to choice of groceries for the weekend. They were unfortunately immune to my poking, and eventually I realized I was just drawing attention to my discomfort.
Fuck. Old friends. Such a fucking nuisance. I should surround myself exclusively with new people who find my wit biting and my sarcasm mean. Strangely, it’s difficult to find people who stick around for that, but of course that’s not really a barrier; once they get used to you, it’s time to find new people anyway.
By the time we hit the road, I’d lapsed into an awkward, self-conscious silence, cut a little by the CN Lester album Alex had been listening to non-stop since he discovered it. I tried to lose myself to the music, and when that didn’t work, I tried to read a book. But in the end I stared out the window in the back seat of Jamie’s car, watching the freeways turn into towns, and the towns turn into fields. There was always something a little feral about this drive, almost like traveling not so much back in time as forward. We started in a sophisticated (to say nothing of expensive) neighborhood in Oakland, all tree-lined streets with people walking well behaved dogs, or carrying babies in those little baby-packs. By the time we neared Saints I could almost pretend we’d driven through centuries, until sand and grass had reclaimed all the spaces once filled with streets and buildings.
Jamie’s house wasn’t quite at the edge of things, but close enough to be a relief after that long expanse of earth and sky.
“Home sweet home.” She coughed, wrinkling her nose. “Oh, god, the cat stench is back. Let’s open up shop!”
We went around opening all the doors and windows, letting the somewhat biting wind blow through. (Any amount of cold was worth putting up with in the name of fresh air; cat urine lingers, possibly forever, even if you get rid of everything that had been peed on.) Dark clouds were moving quickly in and the taste of the air seemed to promise rain.
Once reconvened in the kitchen, we made more coffee.
“I wonder how long we’d have to leave the windows open for the cat smell to never come back.” Alex carefully refolded the empty reusable grocery bags Jamie and I had left scattered around.
“I’ll find out someday. I�
�m definitely going to retire here. Can you imagine? Waking up every morning and having coffee on the back porch?”
The picture made me swallow hard: Jamie, older, still straight-backed and clear-eyed, still with a smile that made my heart beat faster, standing at the top of the back steps with her coffee, staring out to sea.
How I’d kneel at her feet, because a woman like that deserved devotion.
Dammit.
I had not been invited to this fantasy. And yet, I could see that, too. And Alex, who would be sitting with his back against the wall, watching through heavy-lidded eyes, burning for both of us.
I needed to pull myself together, so I went to stand in the doorway, where the air current drew from the entire house, whooshing outside, while the storm battered me trying to get inside, opposing forces clashing on my body. Distracting me from my thoughts. Or shifting their focus from a distant future vision to—
“Jus.” Alex’s hand in the center of my back.
I very carefully didn’t move, hoping he’d leave it there.
“You okay?”
I’m fine rose to my lips. So did Obviously and Of course. But instead of speaking, I pressed back, bowing my head a little while the wind rushed through me, trying to feel every centimeter of his fingers and palm.
He made a sound, I don’t know what, almost a cooing sound, and then his arms were around me and it was everything I desperately wanted. I actually clung to him a little, clawing at his forearms as if trying to keep him trapped there against me.
“I have you,” he murmured, and I shut my eyes so I wouldn’t have to admit it was happening, this strange, perilous hug with a soundtrack of wind and waves.
I didn’t want to be had, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be held, except in another sense I wanted both of those things so much I was trembling a little, enough for Alex to feel it because his arms tightened.
It should have been brutally humiliating. I could feel the thorny vines of my usual self-loathing trying to wrap around this feeling, the way Alex’s arms wrapped around my body, but they couldn’t get purchase.
This was Alex. My Alex.
I turned and buried my face in his neck. I couldn’t hug him back. I was still trembling and too afraid to try. But the scratchy drag of thorns receded and I let him stand there, that close. I let myself stand there.
Beyond us, out of the wind, Jamie started humming a low melody as if she were lulling us to sleep.
* * *
The storm grew more intense as the day went on, but we took a long walk anyway, bundled in coats we’d collected from thrift stores to keep at the house, hoods pulled in as tight as we could pull them (Alex’s didn’t have a drawstring; mine had a tragically short one which was forever lost inside its sleeve). The rain didn’t hit until early afternoon. Until then, it was all wind and dark clouds and gathering intensity—and whatever it is when you can feel the weather coiling, ready to strike. Barometric pressure, maybe? Something like that.
It was fitting. That was exactly how I felt: something inside me was building, or maybe pooling, like this emotion-thought-need began at my toes and rose steadily along with the barometric pressure, filling me. And when it reached my eye sockets, my hairline, something was gonna have to happen or I’d explode.
Maybe I’d just leak, slowly, dribbling out rivulets of this horrible desire to be held, to be coddled, to be touched and petted and cradled between them.
That’s what this was.
I’d been in denial before, but I understood it now. I could hardly breathe when I thought of Alex hugging me, or the scent of the skin at his neck, warm and fresh and him. I wanted so much more than that.
They knew I was acting strange, of course. You can’t know people so well, for so long, and not notice a thing like that. But they didn’t bring it up, which was probably nice of them.
I mean, the one fucking time they don’t bring something up and force me to deal with it is the time my emotional overwhelm meter is hovering around critical. That’s so typical.
We finally surrendered to the weather around sunset and shut most of the windows and all the doors, closing ourselves into a quieter, more contained world. We ate pizza, as usual, and instead of going upstairs, folded out the futon and loaded it with blankets and pillows.
Jamie lit candles, even, which flickered in all the drafts.
“This is super cozy,” Alex said, snuggling in.
I tried to huff or otherwise show my disapproval, except every time he moved, his wiggling brought him closer to my side of the…bed-like not-bed. “What movie are we watching?”
“Haven’t decided.” Jamie got in on Alex’s other side, suspiciously not arranging the computer. “Anyway, the movie’s not the point.”
“Oh yeah?”
Alex rolled over until he was facing me. “If you could have anything you wanted in the whole world, what would it be?”
“If you’re fishing for compliments, you’ll be disappointed.”
“What compliments?”
I sighed. “I’m not going to say, You. If that’s what you were hoping.”
Little lines on his forehead. Consternation. “You already have me. It’d be a waste of a wish.”
I should have laughed it off, said something about money, or hot men, or that fancy coffee that comes from goat shit or whatever.
You already have me. The words echoed in my head. I might have still gotten myself together except he touched me again. Reached for my hand like a kid, interlacing our fingers, palm to palm.
“And you can’t say Jamie either, because you already have her, too.”
Jesus Christ. Stop saying stupid shit. Shut up.
She pressed in behind him, her head higher on his pillow. Both of them looking at me.
I waited for her to speak. Someone should speak. I waited and the heat between my skin and Alex’s seemed to intensify until it was the only thing in my awareness. Until I was accidentally squeezing his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” I finally murmured. “I can’t…I can’t be who you want. Who you should have.”
Jamie rolled her eyes. “He’s lucky we like dumb guys, babe.”
But I didn’t let her get away with making it a joke. It wasn’t a joke. “Don’t try to pretend I’m not who I am. I’m an asshole, and I get mean, and…” I hate myself. Why don’t you hate me?
“You used to get mean.” Alex’s fingers gripped mine. “It’s weird. You don’t strike out as much anymore. Now you hide.”
“I don’t hide. I’m not a fucking wood nymph!”
Jamie burst out laughing and immediately muffled it in Alex’s back. He only smiled. “A wood nymph?”
“It’s…Hazeltine has this essay. Never mind.”
“Tell us about the wood nymphs, Jus.”
“It doesn’t matter.” But on the other hand, it was better than talking about anything else. I laid my head on the pillow. “Just, he used them in this essay to talk about people who hide from the world. The world keeps changing, but people who can’t take it hide out, like if they’re not paying attention, they won’t have to face it.”
Something like the way I wasn’t looking at their faces so I didn’t have to see what they thought.
“Bad news, dumb guy,” Jamie said, voice so gentle I could have screamed. “You are totally a wood nymph. Except it’s not the world changing you’re so afraid of.” Before I could argue with that, she asked, in the same goddamn voice, “Why didn’t you come to us the other night? Why didn’t you ask me, if you wanted a scene?”
“I…didn’t know I did, I guess. I thought I wanted to get laid, and we tried that. It didn’t work.” Before she could fight with me, I kept going. “Or I don’t know. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. But I thought…I didn’t want to…fuck it up more. With you guys. I couldn’t have taken the chance.” I squeezed Alex’s fingers again and addressed Jamie. “There was this moment when I thought about you. When Madison was behind me, I sort of imagined…you. Only for a second
. Because I’m not a total asshole.”
“Yeah, I definitely got Alex off talking about roughing up your inner thighs. FYI.”
Alex nodded confirmation. “Hot.”
I grimaced at the memory of that goddamn crop. “Burning, even.”
“It just seems like it might be…better. The three of us. If we did it for real.” Jamie rested her head on her hand, looking at me. “What we’ve done before has been really good for me. Like, I have fun with other people, but with you, it’s…something else. Having you pinned to the wall, letting me do whatever I wanted was crazy hot.”
I wanted to say, Until it wasn’t. Because it may have ultimately ended after I walked out, but something had happened with her first, and I was almost tempted to ask her, right now, what the hell that had been. Since we were being all emotionally present and shit.
The thing about demanding secrets was you ended up in a kind of…confessional game of chicken. And this time I dodged first, before it even started.
“Madison was good. We had fun, and it was simple. But it was nothing like that. Like you.”
She seemed unreasonably gratified. “You felt it too.”
“Jesus, Cork, I humped you while you ground against me and gnawed on my skin. What’d you think?”
A rush of breath that unsettled Alex’s hair. Her eyelashes fluttered. “I don’t know. I thought maybe it sucked for you. That’s why you left.”
“You know it isn’t. For fuck’s sake.”
“I told her,” Alex said. He turned his head. “I told you.”
“Whatever, shut up. Anyway. I think you should play with us, Jus. It doesn’t have to be sex. Like, at all. Even if it’s hot, we don’t have to cross that line.” Her smile grew a little toothy. “It’d be super cruel if you guys couldn’t come.”
“And what about you?”
A horizontal shrug. “That would be telling, pet.”
I thought about feeling the wall at my back, how my fingernails had dug into my neck, how holding position had been wrong and right simultaneously. I hated it and needed it, almost relished it, the release of allowing myself to just do whatever Jamie said in that moment, and take whatever she had to give.
